Scientists have used gene therapy to regenerate damaged nerve fibres in the eye, in a discovery that could aid the development of new treatments for glaucoma, one of the leading causes of blindness worldwide.
How does the brain make connections, and how does it maintain them? Cambridge neuroscientists and mathematicians are using a variety of techniques to understand how the brain ‘wires up’, and what it might be able to tell us about degeneration in later life.
Our brains are plastic. They continually remould neural connections as we learn, experience and adapt. Now researchers are asking if new understanding of these processes can help us train our brains.
From the way we learn, to how our memories are made and stored, the workings of our brains depend on connections forged between billions of neurons, yet much about how our nervous system develops remains a mystery.
Researchers have offered a convincing new theory which explains why children believe that they are invisible when they cover their eyes.
Research provides insight into why flies have the fastest vision in the animal kingdom.
Technology developed at the University of Cambridge to detect peripheral visual field loss in young children will enable the earlier detection of brain tumours, potentially saving sight and lives.
John Morrill explores one of the most extraordinary and least understood aspects of Anglo-Irish history - the rebellion of 1641.
Pioneering research shines new light on our understanding of the way we see the world. Optical fibres have now been found to exist in vertebrate eyes, channelling light down their length and delivering it without distortion straight to the cells that ‘see’.
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